I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to structures for storing and dispensing bags. More specifically the present invention relates to a sack holder and dispenser preferably mounted on a cabinet door that transfers the weights of the stored sacks to the door. Known relevant prior art may be found in the U.S. Class 211 and the various subclasses thereunder.
II. Description of the Prior Art
As will be immediately recognized by those skilled in the art, specialized sack holders have been widely used in several industries for numerous years. In particular, grocery stores and other retail stores routinely use bag holders and/or dispensers at their check-out counters. Such holders/dispensers are convenient devices for storing sacks and subsequently dispensing them.
Several prior art devices have been proposed for dispensing bags. Kenyon, U.S. Pat. No. 272,263, discloses a paper bag holder including a spring of peculiar form arranged to press upon the bags and follow them down when one or more are removed to keep those remaining securely in place and including lower fixed arms or supports upon which the bags rest.
Doolin U.S. Pat. No. 2,031,147 discloses a bag rack including a plurality of clips which grab the upper surface of each bag and allow the remainder of the bag to hang freely therefrom. Hume, U.S. Pat. No. 1,482,193, discloses a device for presumably clamping a single bag to a grain delivery chute.
Camilleri, U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,332, shows a sliding receptacle for dispensing bags. This device appears to be primarily directed to holding open bags for loading.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,269,416, issued to DeMatteis, shows a rack for storing and dispensing specialized bags. U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,809, issued to Bayes et al. is very similar to the structure of DeMatteis. However, both of these devices appear to be unable to accommodate conventional bags of varying sizes and types.
However, the above referenced devices fail to adequately address several deficiencies with existing sack holding and/or dispensing devices. First of all, most devices are designed primarily for commercial installations. Consequently, many of these devices simply do not adapt well to home use. Furthermore, these commercial devices are often quite specialized and mission specific, often failing to address the needs of do-it-yourselfers. For example, many commercial holders are designed to fit only one bag size. However, the typical home user needs a device that accommodates conventional bags of various sizes and shapes. Moreover, since most commercially available sack holders and dispensers are usually quite specialized, they are also normally expensive.
Another perceived problem with known prior art holders involves sack slippage. Most simple prior art holders use a spring tensioned clip to hold the sacks during storage. However, the spring tensioning often fails to properly store the sacks as the device ages. Further, the spring tensioners are often overloaded. Once overloaded, the devices begin dropping sacks. One method of overcoming problems with spring tensioned holders has been to manufacture holders and accompanying bags with specific tabs for retention. However, again these specific bags and holders usually increase costs and do not work for all types of bags.
An improved sack holder would securely support stored sacks until dispensing. An ideal holder would provide a platform to at least partially support the sacks until dispensing. Such a holder would ideally accommodate a diverse variety of sacks and bags.
A desirable sack holder and dispenser would fit a wide variety of cabinet doors commonly found in most homes. Ideally, it could be cheaply manufactured from inexpensive plastic with minimal moving parts to maximize trouble free operation.
Another improvement would permit the user to selectively segregate different sizes of bags. For example, the user could put relatively large bags in one location while putting relatively smaller bags in another location. Thus, the user could accurately select the proper bag size for a given task.